Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 December 31

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December 31

Add an article

HI there, I like to add an article in history section (on middle-east history). Please advise how I can add the article. Best Rgds — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rezap332 (talk • contribs) 03:42, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Rezap332: Help:Your first article has instructions on how to write an article. Just make sure that what you write is supported by reliable sources. Vahurzpu (talk) 04:55, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Rezap332, when you have chosen a topic for your article, you should go to the page of the Wikiproject Middle East and choose a specific Wikiproject that seems to relate to what you want to write about. Click on that Wikiproject, and you will get the page for the specific Wikiproject. Add your name to the bottom of the list, then go to the Talk page for that specific project and ask them if your topic is already covered in Wikipedia and if it is appropriate. You should get good advice there. Wikipedia in English has a vast number of existing articles already, though there are topics left to cover.--Quisqualis (talk) 22:32, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Send in some money

Folks, I am not trying to say that the addresses you have presented are bogus. I would like to send in some money for the site as I do use Wikipedia quite a bit but, I would like to have some way to send in some money other than putting my credit card info on to the net as I did that earlier and during the Christmas week and I had to change my card as I actually got scammed when someone used a reputable company as the person had used the main page of the company and they on the sly, they moved me to one of their pages. I had to pay them something like 1.50 dollars for shipping. I ended up not getting what I ordered and the company added 19 dollars for goodnes knows what. There was no way to oontact them other by email I have not heard from them.

So, if you send me an address for the postal service, I will send some money. Al Gilchrist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Algilchrist53 (talk • contribs) 05:18, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Algilchrist53: Take a look at the Donating to the Wikimedia Foundation page. you have lots of options, including sending a check by physical mail. Please do not donate at all if you are a little short this year. -Arch dude (talk) 06:03, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

External links in publications section

Are external links allowed in a publications section, as in Marilyn Bridges#Publications? Thanks Possibly (talk) 06:19, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Possibly: Yes. If a publication should be listed at all, then it is acceptable (even desirable) that it be linked. The larger question becomes: how extensive should the "publications" section be? -Arch dude (talk) 07:29, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Arch dude: thanks. Is there a guideline where that is discussed? All I have ever seen in this area is WP:EL, which says "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links); the links should not normally be placed in the body of an article." Possibly (talk) 07:33, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Possibly: I know of no explicit guideline, so my recommendation was based on editorial judgement and common sense. I feel that from an editorial perspective, the "publications" section is not "the body" of the article as the term is used at WP:EL. The external link will not interfere with the reader's comprehension and will not be confusing. This becomes more obvious if you use a one of the citation templates for the publication entry. Again: the big deal is to decide which publications should be in thsat section in the first place, not whether they should be linked. -Arch dude (talk) 17:07, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Possibly: OK, the old brain cells finally fired off and I found the guideline: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works. External links are recommended. -Arch dude (talk) 17:15, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Arch dude: thank you! Yes, I see it, where it says "When a book or article is available online ... it may be useful to provide a link to the online content so readers can view it". To me it seems to be in conflict with WP:EL, but I will roll with it! Thank you for helping to sort that out in my head. Possibly (talk) 18:10, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Possibly: OK, I edited WP:EL to reflect the consensus at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works. -Arch dude (talk) 18:44, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

thank you again. I am pretty sure that will generate some discussion at WP:EL! Possibly (talk) 18:49, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Requesting help to remove extra spaces and carriage returns in templates

Greetings and felicitations. I keep running into extra carriage returns and spaces in navbars and other templates, but often do not have the skill to remove them myself. An example is the Template:Young Bosnia, as in the "Nedeljko Čabrinović" article's External links section. Since many of these templates are seldom frequented by editors, pinging people who haven't seen a template in a year or more, often several, can be deemed obnoxious. Where should I bring these problems? —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:34, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@DocWatson42: Try asking at WT:WikiProject Templates. Johnuniq (talk) 08:44, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. ^_^ —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:56, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Hate on Wikipedia

How are you going to address this? https://david-collier.com/wiki-antisemitic/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:7000:AC07:DD8:7453:E2C0:5C3:7BC1 (talk) 12:41, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

What is there to address? I haven't read the text at the link , but people are allowed to tell others about their views on Wikipedia. 331dot (talk) 12:47, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Since that's off-Wikipedia, there's not really anything anyone here can do. If there are issues with particular articles, discuss it on the relevant talk page, and provide good reliable sources to back any claim you are trying to espouse. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 🎄Happy Holidays!⛄ 15:15, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I think they mean the specific points...which go on...quite a lot...without making relevant note of ongoing changes, discussion even at the time of writing, let alone in the run-up. It also isn't actually advising any set of objectives for Wikipedia itself that are SMART, and just generally advises individuals to cease donating. Should there be viable changes that are article relevant they can be raised there, should there be general issues which you have enumerated proposals for, then WP:VPR is the place to go and there are issues which you have suggestions but not clarified proposals, then WP:VPI would be best suited. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:26, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

By "address this" I assume you mean how Wikipedia is going to address the problems of biased editing in the Israel-Palestine topic area. That (along with the topic areas of American Politics and Gender) is one of our most divisive topic areas. It has been addressed in several arbitration cases, and there is a summary of arbitration remedies related to the topic area here. Those remedies are intended to cool heads and allow normal editing to happen; they do not prescribe content.~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:45, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Dear anonymous, how are you going to address the issues that Collier writes about? Pelagic ( messages ) – (09:10 Fri 01, AEDT) 22:10, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Collier explains in his post that he has tried to engage with Wikipedia in the past, most notably at Talk:Balad al-Shaykh massacre. Sadly he did not continue those discussions, which appear to have been sensible. Onceinawhile (talk) 03:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I want to remove my name from a wiki page

Hi I want to remove my name from a page I have no idea why my name is used in it!! https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Magharibia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.41.37 (talk) 16:32, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

That is on the French Wikipedia site you will have to ask there instead, this is the English Wikipedia. Theroadislong (talk) 16:35, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

The article seems to mention a least half a dozen names of people associated with the channel (the page on the english wikipedia does not seem to, however), and I wouldn't care to guess which is yours, but are are you sure it's referring to you specifically? If you're not associated with the channel then I would assume that someone shares a name with you. --Paul ❬talk❭ 17:01, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

For help with pages on French Wikipedia, you may want to ask at fr:Aide:Poser une question or fr:Wikipédia:Contact/Article vous concernant. Seagull123 Φ 16:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Question about sockpuppets who have had their usernames oversighted

I found an account whose username was globally oversighted, but I believe that it is possible that it is a sockpuppet of a specific user, so I'd like to ask if I should tag it as such, even though the user doesn't exist to most Wikipedians. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 20:09, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

JJPMaster, if they are globally OSd then chances are good we don't want people finding their name. In that case, wouldn't it make sense to not tag their userpage and leave a papertrail where others could find it? Primefac (talk) 20:18, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@JJPMaster: you were told to stop fucking around with SPI stuff, yet still you persist. Why ? Nick (talk) 20:21, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Nick, I was not told that as far as I know. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 20:23, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@JJPMaster: I do apologise, it seems it was WP:AN you were warned about. I'd stick to content work if I were you though. Nick (talk) 20:30, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Did I just break the AIV input page?

I removed a Talkpage-type comment left for a reporter of IP vandalism from the input box, and moved it to the reporter's Talk. Following that, I could not get my own vandal report to stick, and I think I may have taken away some vital markup on the User-reported vandalism input box. Anyone want to report this up the hierarchy or try to verify the damage I think I'm seeing? I not only feel guilty, I'm horrified that I may have such power.--Quisqualis (talk) 22:07, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

It seems to be working; people have left reports after your edit. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 22:48, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. What a relief.--Quisqualis (talk) 23:42, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorting searches by size

When using the WP search engine (i.e. CirrusSearch), is it possible to order results by the size of the article? It seems as though there should be a way to do this, but I haven't been able to find it in the usual places (e.g. mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Explicit sort orders). Cheers, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:49, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Extraordinary Writ: Nope. I have yust tried, and the Software tells the following: A warning has occurred while searching: Sort order of size is unrecognized, default sorting will be applied. Valid sort orders are: relevance, just_match, none, incoming_links_asc, incoming_links_desc, last_edit_asc, last_edit_desc, create_timestamp_asc, create_timestamp_desc, random Victor Schmidt (talk) 22:57, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Oddly, there also is no way to sort alphabetically, the way encyclopedias have always been sorted. I recall a Phabricator ticket where a developer claimed such an option would be harmful because the results would be useless to users. The developer apparently thought users would only choose the option in situations where the result was useless to them. I have a little more faith in users. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:20, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

By the way, I have a script User:PrimeHunter/Search sort.js to add 10 links to search pages with the 10 sort options. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:25, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I can't imagine this would be very difficult to implement since the search results already include article size, and it could be quite helpful in identifying unmarked stubs, finding overly bloated articles, etc. A filter for maximum or minimum article size would work as well. Perhaps I should put in a request via Phabricator, although my lack of technical ability might preclude it. Excuse my ignorance, but is this the sort of thing that a script could be written for, or would it require a change in CirrusSearch itself? Thanks. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

It would require a change in CirrusSearch unless you only want to sort and display the first results returned by CirrusSearch. A search can have millions of results. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:36, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Creating a link to a picture file without actually showing the photograph

How do I create a link here to a file without showing the actual photograph? Please {{ping}} me when you respond. --Jax 0677 (talk) 23:36, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

user:Jax 0677Just add a colon in front of the image name for example, [[:File:Google Chrome for Android Icon 2016.svg]] shows as the link File:Google Chrome for Android Icon 2016.svg rather than the image. Meters (talk) 23:46, 31 December 2020 (UTC)